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12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian. Guess there's a reason Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world. Working themselves into oblivion.
by PKop 5y ago
12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian. Guess there's a reason Taiwan has the lowest birthrate in the world. Working themselves into oblivion.
- Karupan 5y ago> 12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian And quite common in certain industries. I have relatives in oil rigs and aircraft maintenance who work 12 hour shifts 4 days a week. But they do usually get 3 day weekends and other perks.
- Beldin 5y agoAround here, in certain areas, full-time is 36hrs. You can arrange to do 4 days of 9 hours each and have 3-day weekends. 12 hour days may be reasonable in certain situations, but "3 day weekend" doesn't sound like nearly enough of a perk.
- arethuza 5y agoIn the UK North Sea, two weeks on and two weeks off certainly used to be standard on the rigs, fisherman would often be at sea Sunday evening to Thursday or Friday every week.
- gspr 5y agoBut this is clearly not what the GP post was getting at.
- dehrmann 5y agoYou know about 996, right?
- josephcsible 5y agoI thought 996 was a mainland China thing.
- MangoCoffee 5y agothis is not 996. its common in the semis industry even in the US. when i was younger i used to work in a Motorola fab at Austin, TX. you work couple days in a week like 3 days and overnight into the morning then for the rest of week you are off. this got nothing to do with 996 or whatever. its the norm in the semis industry.
- dehrmann 5y agoMy comment was in response to "12 hour days. Sounds pretty dystopian." Maybe it's dystopian, but a worse version has been standard practice in China for a while.
- thedougd 5y agoChina is cracking down on 996 now. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58381538 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58381538
- bsder 5y agoNor even terribly unusual--even in US manufacturing. Longer than 8 hour shifts is simply a matter of scheduling--you then wind up doing things like 4 days on/3 days off. However, when you pass 40 hours, you owe people overtime in the US. I imagine that TSMC isn't particular stringent about documenting that in Taiwan.
- throwaway2037 5y agoYou wrote: <<However, when you pass 40 hours, you owe people overtime in the US.>> In the United States, this is not true for the _vast_ majority of salaried knowledge workers. Do you have a source... or is this just a guess? We are not talking about people working in logistics -- driving trucks, working at a warehouse. They will be hourly wage workers and have overtime.
- madengr 5y ago
- PKop 5y agoIt might be unusual if these Taiwanese 12-hour shifts don't actually come with 3 days off, and are just in addition to "regular" hours, 5-day work week.
- bsder 5y agoThe vast majority of factory workers are not salaried, last I checked. However, even salaried workers in the US are nominally required to be compensated for extra hours. It's not quite as straightforward, but you can't simply expect 60 hours per week from every salaried worker--that will likely land you in trouble with the Feds. The main difference is that "exempt" workers generally don't care to avail themselves of various enforcement options. They just leave and get a different job.
- rbanffy 5y agoAnd we also need to remember that, after 12 hours of work, you are no longer the sharper tool in the box. What is the cost fraction of humans in this? Chip foundries are so ridiculously capital intensive I can’t imagine it to be a huge part of the operating costs.
- ngc248 5y agoThis is not 996. They may work 3 days and get 3 days off.